COVID’19 has changed the overall work environment since the last year and has sent numerous employees home, making employers and employees work from home. This workplace change was difficult to manage for many people compared to the daily commutes’ norms, such as catch-ups over the coffee machine, relaxed office environment, and in-person meetings that bring a question of whether the traditional in-house work model is preferable and productive the remote setup.
Many companies developed remote working environments even before the pandemic hit to save the expense and get the benefits, but it resulted in lowing their employees’ productivity every passing day. The majority audience will agree that Zoom, FaceTime, or Microsoft Teams cannot replicate the real in-house work environment. This is why it is necessary to discuss remote work challenges and their solutions.
As things are getting better now and the world attempts to get back to a sense of normality, and most businesses returned to their workplaces, either hybrid terms or full-time, employers and employees face many challenges to move forward with it. Let’s have a detailed look at the challenges of tackling the evolution of the workplace post-COVID for employers:
Challenges & the solutions
Managing the workplace post-COVID, either on hybrid terms or full-time, has become a new challenge for the employees and employers. Mismanagement after such a long time can badly affect your employees’ productivity, motivation, commitment, and experience. As a result, it will directly impact the company, either in a good or bad way, depending upon what actions are being incorporated.
Flexibility
One of the highlighted advantages of remote work is that you get great flexibility to work over the standard office model. Employees have found some time they lost in commuting, suiting up, and being out to get to the office; however, remote work allows you to spend working hours on work and the rest time you may spend with your family and kids to have some valuable moments. As we are back to the offices, now most will feel the loss of this time, either on hybrid terms or full-time.
Therefore, in either case, employers have to take care of their employee’s feelings and understand that it would take some time for some people to get adjusted back to the rigid office work routine. Here the challenge comes for employers to provide their employees’ flexibility to fulfill their essential needs while committing their hard work with no work delay. This is something that will motivate your employees to perform their duties well and will also help them to get adjusted soon.
Employment contracts
As many people have abruptly shifted to remote work, there are no contract amendments in employment letters for a long time that needs to be taken under consideration as necessary adjustments, whether they are working permanently or remotely. Employers need to revisit employment contracts to make any changes like performance goals, remote work, working hours, performance measurement, adjustability, and many other factors that are deemed necessary to address in a contract regarding remote work relationships.
For the employees returning to the offices for full-time, their employers must consider whether contract letters need changes to allow employees for further flexibilities, such as isolation due to COVID-19, quarantine, and sickness.
Policies
On returning back to the workplaces, old office policies also need to be reconsidered according to the COVID’19 requirements, just like employment letters. Offices need to make all the possible safety measurements to keep their workers protected from the virus and provide the feasibility of letting employees work from home if they find any COVID symptoms.
Work policies need to be changed by employers to ensure the COVID measurements, such as meetings, social distancing, sanitation, handshakes, and much more. Make the policies about how and when employees can go for remote work. It would be limited to the number of days or months when employees should have communication, other check-in or login procedures to ensure that the employees are working remotely, etc.
Bottom Line
Returning to workplaces might take a little time for employees and employers to adjust as the world is still not totally free from COVID. There are many pandemic measurements needed to ensure from employers on returning to offices; policies need to be redefined, employment contracts need to change to provide flexibilities to employees so they can shift back to the workplaces properly.
